A scar tissue comes up on your skin surface after wounds. This comes up because the protein collagen forms on top of a wound or open skin surface to heal the skin after damage, torn pimples, acne, or chickenpox. This collagen layer is often noticable as a scar. Scars can be of different types. Let’s have a look at some types, that will help you understand well the type of scar on skin one may have.
Types of Scar on Skin
The type of scar depends on various factors. For example,
Natural Skin Type: some people may have porous, or acne-prone skin. They may naturally get hyperpigmentation and uneven skin surface due to acne. This is the most common cause of moderate-level scars.
Injury Spot: some deep injuries like surgery or deep burns may result prominent scars that are much prominent.
Sustained Injury: deep burns, surgery scars, and even lumps of acne can create scars that stay for long.
The better we know about the type of scar we have, the easier it gets to treat it. Let us have a look at some major scar types in detail.
Keloid Scar
Dark, raised scars that grow even larger than the wound itself, and even after the wound is healed. These result because of overproduction of collagen at the wound spot.
Keloid scars may can cause itching, and pain, and also caused benign tumours. Moreover, they may also interfere with movement when on sensitive mobile body parts like legs, back or feet.
Hypertrophic Scar
These scars also come up due to excessive collagen formation. However, they only stay at the infection site, and may not spread across.
Hypertrophic scars are raised scars often different in color than the original skin tone. These scars can also be itchy and painful. However, with time they get less raised and noticable. Thereby also reduce the pain and itch. But, this may take up to several years.
Atrophic Scar
The scars come up after acne, pimples or chickenpox. These appear as dents or pits on the skin. Atrophic scars result from damage to skin’s collagen. Some examples are strech and acne marks.
Contracture Scar
These scars cause the skin to become tight. They are often the result of burns, and they can be painful.
As the name sounds, these scars mai contract and tighten the skin. They are often a result of burns and can be painful.
So, Contracture scars are the thick patchy surface you may see on skin that gets affected by a burn. As the patch is thick, these go down to the nerves and muscles beneath the skin. When with very deep burns, they may also affect movement of the body part.
Fine-line Scar
These are raised lines that remain after a minor cut or wound or after surgery. The line usually flattens and fades over time. However, this may take up to 2 years, and even then, there may still be a small mark.
The scar may be itchy for several months.
The raised lines that come up after a surgery or minor cut are called the fine-line scars. The lines may usually fade and flatten with time. This scar can cause itching for several months. The complete healing process may take up to 2 years. However, at times a small unnoticeable mark is still there even after that.
Widespread Scar
The flat and pale scars that may come up after a surgery. These are due to the use of surgical instrucments. They may stretch and scar and make it wider.
Widespread scars are also called stretched scars, they are less thick and more wide, taking up more space but unnoticable because of the flat surface they have.